Photos From the Great American Food and Music Festival

A Day at the Great American Food (and Line) Festival

For weeks I was looking forward to attending Serious EatsGreat American Food and Music Fest at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA. With big-name celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri, and the best of America's regional cuisine — Katz's pastrami sandwiches, Pink's hot dogs, Tony Luke's Philly cheesesteaks, etc. — it was sure to be a fabulous festival.

Unfortunately, the first-time event was plagued with problems, so much so that the organizer, Ed Levine, published a formal apology. The computerized credit card pay system crashed, the staff was unhelpful and clueless, and, most importantly, the wait to get any food was two hours long! Instead of smiling, contented faces and full bellies, the crowd was hungry, aggressive, and angry.

Luckily, as the day wore on and the crowds thinned out, things got a little better. Fieri and Flay both gave enthusiastic demos in front of cheering fans. The wine-tasting room was uncrowded, the line for bacon was empty, and the chocolate-almond-covered caramel sticks were finger-licking good. Did anyone else attend? What food did you eat?

To take a closer look at the festival, check out all of my images and read more.

The line for bacon was empty? When did you get in line? Because we waited in line from 3PM to 4:49 to get samples of bacon. At that time we watched ONE guy making BLT sandwiches in the back while four folks were manning the cash registers. We waited at the counter for almost five minutes while we watched folks scurrying around but nobody was making the little "bacon sample" plates. Cruel to have piles and piles of bacon sitting there for us to look at and not be able to figure out how to get it to the counter quickly.

5 years

The day was pretty bumpy, but my husband and I had a great time. We were there from noon to 9:15pm, saw a couple shows and partook of pastrami, wings, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, ice cream, cheese steaks, PB&J, chocolate bouchons and the most amazing truffles I've ever tasted. And lots of wine.

ALOT of people have gotten refunds for this debacle, Levine should go run and hide for awhile to wait in line for 4 hours for Katz Deli, and its on sub par rye bread and GASP yellow mustard not deli mustard?
shameful.

wow! i was bummed earlier that i couldn't go, but not so much now after hearing this!

5 years

this event was horrible. the hella long lines for PRE-PAID tickets started off the day in a really bad way. then even longer lines for food, which ended up in aimless mobs finally getting to food booths only to be told they were sold out. so ridiculous. we left at 5 pm with NOTHING to show except standing in lines! we got NOTHING after waiting for HOURS! what a poor pathetic excuse for an event. gee, and how nice to know that once the "crowds thinned out" (read: frustrated ticket holders LEFT IN DISGUST hungry and tired) that things got better. gee that's nice. so for the 1000s who showed up with tickets in hand, we get nothing. but if you showed up late or waited hours more, you may have gotten something. how incredibly STUPID. thanks for wasting our saturday!!!!
btw, some friends of ours bought their tickets through a local radio station, told to go to will call to pick them up, and then will call staff has no clue about tickets. they said "sorry no tickets here" WTF????
EPIC FAIL.